“This is such an absurd situation. Speaker of the National Assembly, Igor Zorčič, voted against the agenda of the regular session he is chairing. And thus he prevented the consideration of a number of important solutions for the people, as well as the discussion on the proposal for a constitutional impeachment, filed by the opposition,” Prime Minister Janez Janša commented on the matter on Twitter. It seems that the opposition has finally figured out that the arguments from their constitutional impeachment proposal are actually meaningless and has therefore voted against the agenda of the regular session – to make sure that there would be no session at all.
At the beginning of the May regular session, the MPs did not approve the proposed agenda of the regular session of the National Assembly. With 84 MPs present, 42 deputies voted in favour of the agenda, and 42 voted against it, the Slovenian Press Agency reports. Speaker of the National Assembly, Igor Zorčič, concluded the session of the National Assembly before it even began. On the agenda of Tuesday’s part of the regular session was the decision on whether or not the National Assembly will request the opinion of the President of the Republic Borut Pahor on the matter of the proposal for the constitutional impeachment of Prime Minister Janez Janša. In the next part of the session, the Prime Minister and the Ministers were going to respond to the parliamentary questions of the MPs. And in the second part of this week, the National Assembly was supposed to decide on the proposal for a constitutional impeachment of Prime Minister Janez Janša, as well as the proposal for the dismissal of the Speaker of the National Assembly, Zorčič.
Constitutional lawyer and former director of the Government Office for Legislation, Dr Janez Pogorelc, commented on the matter on Twitter, writing: “This is what will be happening from now on. If we do not replace him, and we can only replace him with an informal “vote of no confidence,” so with a clear statement that if we do not have the majority, we will go to the polls, we will have nothing but trouble. However, if it is clear to everyone that the decision is between the support and the elections, then even Zorčič himself will support his own dismissal.” Head of the SDS parliamentary group, Danijel Krivec, said in a statement for the media in the National Assembly that it was absurd for Zorčič to vote against the agenda of a session he convened himself. As he said, he does not remember such a complication happening ever before, despite the fact that he has been in parliament for a long time now. They do have enough votes, but they did not expect such a complication to arise, he added. He reminded everyone that one of the key points of the session was also the proposal for the constitutional impeachment of the Prime Minister. “The fact that they voted against their own agenda point is incomprehensible to me. They are obviously afraid of voting on the Speaker of the National Assembly,” he remarked. The vote on Zorčič’s dismissal was also part of the agenda of the session. Krivec assessed that such a change in the work process of the National Assembly was not appropriate.
NSi MP Černigoj: Does the opposition want to help or harm the people?
NSi MP Andrej Černigoj wrote that this is what starts to happen when the opposition realises that the arguments from the proposal for the constitutional impeachment actually make no sense – that is when they decide to vote against the agenda so that there would be no session at all. Unfortunately, it was precisely at this session that the NSi party also planned to pass a law that would raise compensation for the lost income of parents of children with special needs. And at the suggestion of the coalition (SMC, SDS and NSi), they would also vote on the law on mountain trails. “The longest session to happen in the National Assembly since we took over the leadership of the country has been cancelled due to the opposition?!?! I am wondering if perhaps, this is too stressful for them? Do they want to harm people instead of helping them? The Speaker of the National Assembly voting against the agenda of a session of the National Assembly…” he commented on Facebook.
Deputies from the DeSUS, SNS and the coalition parties voted in favour of the proposed agenda, with the exception of two SDS and one SMC MP, who were absent, while the deputies from the opposition parties, with the exception of one absent MP form the SD party, voted against the agenda. Deputies of the national minorities were also absent.
“Due to the non-adoption of the agenda for the May session of the National Assembly, there will be no session because there were not enough votes. This does not mean that there will be no session on the proposal for the constitutional impeachment. On the contrary, a request for a session has already been made. There will be a session dedicated to the discussion of the proposal for the constitutional impeachment,” the president of the LMŠ party, Marjan Šarec, announced.
This is really something else.
Sara Bertoncelj
